On This Day in IUPUI History: October 11, 1976

October 11, 1976

On this day, The Sagamore, the student newspaper of IUPUI, published a two-page multi-article spread on tuition increases and academic fee policies at IUPUI and in the IU system. The report followed IUPUI chancellor Glenn W. Irwin's appointment of a task force to study the issue, prompted by the IU Board of Trustees charging each campus in the IU system to examine tuition and fees.

The newspaper's reporters reached back into state and IU history to outline the fees that students paid to attend university. As well, articles compared Indiana's experience with other states' rates, highlighting the national problem of rapidly rising tuition and fees at public universities. An original editorial cartoon commented negatively on the topic.

The Sagamore's attention to tuition increases arose from student anxieties about the affordability of university education. During the 1970s many of IUPUI's students, a significant number of whom juggled jobs and family responsibilities, paid their own ways through school. They worried about fee increases curtailing their college careers. For them, college was not a time of carefree partying on the parental dime.